Let’s Get Moving

Get moving and keep on going. That's the main takeaway of a new study led by the Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Wael Jaber that's highlighted in this MarketWatch story. It finds that a sedentary lifestyle is worse for your overall health than even smoking, diabetes and heart disease. The study was published Friday, Oct. 19, in the journal JAMA Network Open.

"Being unfit on a treadmill or in an exercise stress test has a worse prognosis, as far as death, than being hypertensive, being diabetic or being a current smoker," Jaber, a cardiologist, tells CNN. "We've never seen something as pronounced as this and as objective as this."

The United States is particularly impacted by this because we struggle with a fitness challenge. The average body mass index (bmi) for an American male is well over the normal range. What’s more alarming is that it is dangerously close to entering ‘obese’ levels.

Moreover, the impact of living a sedentary life is far more deadly than many other medical conditions like kidney disease, diabetes, or illnesses caused by smoking.

The good news is that the prescription is exercise, not pharmaceuticals. At any time, an individual can engage in a cure.

Improving your lifestyle can have major effects on insurance as well. Health insurance and Life insurance premiums, both of which are based on individual health, are greatly impacted the healthy and more active you are.

Any level of exercise can have a positive impact on a person’s health and longevity. "There is no level of exercise or fitness that exposes you to risk," Jaber says. "We can see from the study that the ultra-fit still have lower mortality." Dr. Jaber also shares that, ‘fitness leads to longer life, with no limit to the benefit of aerobic exercise.’